Many wanted him hanged as just vengeance for the murder of comrades and family during the battles at Alamo and Goliad, but Sam Houston spared his life and extracted a promise from Santa Anna that Mexican troops would be removed from Texas.
[1] Santa Anna persuaded Burnet that if he were allowed to return to Mexico City, he would argue for the independence of Texas.
A draft of the agreement, which Santa Anna refused to sign until it was amended, stated that he recognized as "Head of the Mexican Nation" Texas's independence, text that was later dropped.
[4] The documents were not even called "treaties" until they were so characterized by U.S. President James K. Polk in his justifications for war some ten years later, as U.S. Representative Abraham Lincoln pointed out in 1848.
This is the text of the Public Agreement:[6] Articles of an agreement entered into between his Excellency David G. Burnet President of the Republic of Texas of the one part & His Excellency General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana President-General in Chief of the other part-- General Antonio López de Santa Anna agrees that he will not take up arms, nor will he exercise his influence to cause them to be taken up against Texas's people during the present war of Independence.
This is the text of the Secret Treaty:[6] Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, General in Chief of the Army of Operations and President of the Republic of Mexico, before the Government established in Texas, solemnly pledges himself to fulfill the stipulations contained in the following Articles, so far as concerns himself.
Mexico's position was that Santa Anna had no legal standing with the Mexican government to agree to those terms or negotiate a treaty.
Santa Anna's position was that he had signed the documents under coercion as a prisoner, not as a surrendering general in accordance with the laws of war.
He was kept as a prisoner-of-war ("clapped in irons for six months," he later claimed[citation needed]) in Velasco and then in the Orozimbo Plantation, before he was taken to Washington, DC, to meet with US President Andrew Jackson, ostensibly to negotiate a lasting peace between Mexico and Texas, with the US acting as mediator.